Australia’s Prohibition Crisis: Police Revolt, Black Markets Boom, and Public Health Pays the Price
- Alan Gor
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Alan Gor 08 June 2025
Australia is in the grip of a full-blown prohibition crisis and it’s not just about vapes.
What started as a so-called “public health” effort to protect youth and reduce smoking has rapidly devolved into a tangled web of black market crime, police overload, broken trust, and spiralling costs. And now, with NSW police pushing back against being drafted into the tobacco enforcement war, the cracks in the national strategy are becoming impossible to ignore.
This isn’t just NSW’s problem. It’s Australia’s. And the damage is growing by the day.
Police Push Back — “We Can’t Do This”
This week, The Sydney Morning Herald revealed the depth of frustration within the NSW Police Force. Officers are furious at suggestions they be redeployed to tackle the exploding tobacco black market a monster created by extreme taxation and the criminalisation of vaping.
At least 500 officers would be needed just to cover a fraction of illicit tobacco shops in NSW.
The force is already short 4,000 staff, with hundreds more off sick.
Proactive squads who deal with firearms, domestic violence, gang activity, and terrorism would be pulled away for shop raids.
One officer summed it up:
“We can’t be kicking in smoke shops over a tax issue.”
Meanwhile, public health advisors and academic defenders of the current policy continue to insist that “tax isn’t the problem” refusing to acknowledge the obvious. They’re half-right at best.
The tax alone may not be the whole problem, but it is absolutely contributing to the chaos. When legal cigarettes cost upwards of $50–70 a pack, and safer alternatives are banned, what do they think people will do?
And worse: the same officials refuse to admit they got it wrong. The idea that lowering excise could help by shrinking the black market and restoring enforcement focus is off-limits in their political bubble. Ideology has replaced evidence. And the public is paying for it.
A National Black Market Out of Control
This is the direct result of Canberra’s crusade against vaping and high-tax approach to smoking.
Cigarettes now cost $50–$70 a pack, pricing out lower-income Australians.
Vaping, a proven harm reduction tool, is now available only through pharmacies most of which don’t even stock it.
A tidal wave of illicit vapes and tobacco has flooded the country.
From Sydney to Perth, Melbourne to Darwin, communities are now facing:
A network of illegal tobacconists and “smoke shops” on every high street.
Links to organised crime, money laundering, and tax evasion.
Police, councils, and health authorities overwhelmed and underfunded.
Ordinary people criminalised for trying to stay off cigarettes.
While South Australia, claims to be taking bold action on tobacco and vaping, the numbers tell a very different story.
SA has been held up as a national model, with high-profile raids and a heavily policed crackdown on illicit nicotine sales.
But behind the headlines, smoking rates are going up, not down.
The so-called “success” is mostly optics — it’s about media coverage and looking tough, not real outcomes.
And all of this in a country that claims to be a global public health leader.
The Hidden Costs: Millions Wasted, Crimes Ignored
Let’s look at the national fallout:
Hundreds of millions in lost tobacco excise revenue.
Millions more in destruction and storage of seized products.
Years-long prosecutions, choking up courts and legal budgets.
Police pulled off real crimes domestic violence, sexual abuse, gun trafficking to focus on vape raids.
NSW alone stores 178 tonnes of cigarettes at a cost of $1.1 million and has spent another $246,000 this year destroying vapes.
And vapes? They’re even harder to dispose of — with batteries, and strict protocols.
“It’s a bonfire of money,” one public servant remarked off the record.
A Policy So Broken, It Can’t Be Enforced
Across the country, state and federal agencies are locked in a confused standoff:
Police can’t search people for vapes because personal possession isn’t illegal.
Courts require storage of seized products for years while cases drag on.
NSW Health can inspect shops without warrants, but they’re under-resourced.
Federal agencies got $150 million to crack down.
As one officer put it:
“Shouldn’t this stay with Health or the Feds? They’re the ones collecting the money anyway.”
Meanwhile, academics continue to claim that high tobacco taxes are a vital part of reducing smoking rates which is true in principle. But when the price goes so far beyond affordability, it becomes counterproductive. Punishing poverty doesn’t promote public health. It fuels desperation.
And yet, those responsible continue to double down rather than admit failure. Admitting that lowering tobacco excise could reduce illegal sales and ease pressure on police is treated as heresy — even though it’s clearly part of the solution.
Australians Deserve Better
This isn’t just a law enforcement problem. It’s a national public health emergency caused by ideological policy failure. A few truths need to be said out loud:
Prohibition doesn’t work. It never has not for alcohol, not for drugs, and not for nicotine.
People want safer alternatives. Banning them doesn’t change that.
Heavy-handed taxes don’t reduce harm they just fuel black markets.
Punishing people for quitting smoking is morally indefensible.
Australia is now the only Western democracy treating vaping as a criminal threat while continuing to sell deadly cigarettes in every corner store.
It’s not just irrational. It’s inhumane.
The Way Forward: A National Reset
If governments are serious about solving this crisis not just shifting blame here’s what must happen:
Legalise and regulate vaping through mainstream retail.
Make it accessible, controlled, and off the black market.
Reduce tobacco excise to realistic levels.
Acknowledge the mistake. End the price distortion driving crime.
Get police out of the nicotine war.
They should be fighting violence and crime, not raiding corner stores.
Treat nicotine users with dignity.
Smoking is a health issue, not a criminal one. So is quitting.
Stop outsourcing policy to prohibitionist ideologues.
Australia needs evidence-based reform, not fear-driven theatrics.
The Whole Nation Is Watching
What’s happening in NSW is a warning shot to every other state and territory. The “tobacco war” isn’t just failing it’s damaging the very systems we rely on to protect health, safety, and justice.
If Australia doesn’t course-correct soon, the black market will only grow stronger, and the damage will deepen.
Let’s stop burning money, trust, and police time.
Let’s start respecting people and the science instead.